


Three Wishes

by Arsenic



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Captivity, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Inaccuracies, Multi, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-05-10 10:06:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14734917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/Arsenic
Summary: Wynonna knows she should have been paying more attention.  She also knows Dolls and Doc will find her.  That's what scares her.





	Three Wishes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [egelantier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/egelantier/gifts).



> Enormous thanks to my beta.
> 
> Recip -- you have no idea how much I want this to be the fic of your heart, but even if it isn't, I hope I came through enough, and that you enjoy. Thanks for the awesome prompt, and I hope the exchange was fantastic for you.
> 
> Mods, thank you as always for running this exchange.

It's her own fault, and Wynonna damn well knows it. If she could have shaken off the fatigue that had dogged her every second of every waking hour in the aftermath of the birth, could have felt a little more interest in the things happening around her, could have done anything other than just drag one foot in front of another and pretend to be alive, everything would have been fine. But she couldn't.

She knows there's a name for what she's experiencing, knows other people go through it. But other people aren't the heir. Other people have the option of letting their brain chemistry and hormones steer the ship for a bit. Wynonna doesn't, and having allowed it is going to be what gets her killed.

She'd actually be all right with that, truth told, except for the first time in weeks she can feel an emotion that's not exhaustion or disinterest, and it's terror. Not of what the demon holding her will do, no. She can rest assured he'll eventually kill her and that's…strangely comforting. 

But Doc and Dolls will come for her. They won't stop until they find her, and when they do, the demon will have them, too.

All she can do is pray they keep Waverly safe, running mission control with Jeremy, or getting into a type of everyday trouble with Nicole. She thinks they'll do their best, for her. It's not enough, it's not, she wants them all to stay away, to stay safe. But she can't save anyone, not even herself.

*

Wynonna disappears in the middle of a Thursday. Dolls is out following a lead about one of his old contacts in Black Badge. Waverly is at the station, working out some details of one of the latest decryption issues they've run across with Jeremy. Doc is doing the books at the bar and once again thinking about how badly he needs to hire someone to take care of this part of things for him.

When the numbers start to swim and reverse themselves, he shakes his head, gets up, and pours himself a shot. He glances over at the ledger, but after a second acknowledges that until he checks in on Wynonna, he's not getting anything done. He knows if she could get annoyed right now—oh, she puts on a good show and all, but Doc is intimately aware of the cadence of Wynonna's annoyance, and everything right now is just an echo of real emotion—she'd be seething with irritation at the way neither him nor Dolls can go over fifteen hours without checking in.

She can't, though. And that's part of why Dolls and he can't seem to break their pattern, either. He gives up even pretending he's going to do anything else and makes his way to the station. Finding Waverly and Jeremy, he asks, "You seen your sister?"

Waverly says, "She actually slept through her alarm and I—"

Doc waves a hand. He gets it. They all keep hoping giving Wynonna enough space to rest will heal the worst of the unseen damage. He won't lie, not even to himself, on this score—he wishes she'd let him stay, let him mourn with her—but so long as she's working her way through it, well. None of them have any plans to interfere.

That said, it's after one, so someone should probably make her eat something, at the very least. He says, "I'm gonna go out to the homestead."

"Tell her everything's okay here, though, yeah?" Waverly asks.

"'Course," he tells her.

He never makes it to the homestead, because he's halfway there when he notices Wynonna's car sitting on the side of the road. He parks behind it and gets out to figure out what in the seven hells is going on. She's not in the car, that's for sure. And there's a smell that means something to him. He has to close his eyes and let himself zone to actually figure it out, but when he does his eyes snap open and he's hitting Dolls' speed dial setting before he even realizes his fingers are moving, swallowing down terror alongside bile.

Dolls picks up with, "I'm kind of—"

"Demon's got Wynonna."

"What? What do you—What demon? How? When did—"

"Get back here," Doc cuts him off. "We gotta find her."

"Already on my way," Dolls agrees.

*

The demon who comes for her is not Clootie, but Wynonna's pretty sure this reject from the Leprechaun movies is working for him. There's an epic crap-ton of warding running _through_ the bars of the cell, and magic and ass-ugly creatures who want to know where the "heir's spawn" is, which likely adds up to that asshole being the Thing Calling the Shots.

Her answer regarding her spawn is, "Disney World," which evidently Leprechaun IX doesn't believe. As soon as he opens the door of the cell she goes for his junk and his throat, because if anything is going to work out in her favor, it's usually one of those two.

She's barefoot and weaponless and human, so not really surprised when all her efforts affect is an annoyed grunt. They also get her thrown five feet into the concrete wall. Her head makes contact and things go blurry for a moment before she blacks out entirely.

*

"We're in agreement that this is most definitely a trap, correct?" Doc asks, looking at the information Waverly has compiled. It quite conveniently leads them to where Wynonna is almost certainly being held. Nicole's watching them in that way she has, like she knows she's going to be the person to pick up the pieces of whatever mess is coming.

"Hundred percent," Dolls says.

"All right, then," Doc says, and turns to go figure out what to bring. The likelihood that he'll manage to keep any of it is small, but _not_ going isn't an option, so he might as well hope for the best while surely expecting the worst.

Jeremy says, "Have we got anything that works against demons when _not_ being shot by Wynonna?"

"You should have a plan," Waverly says, everyone clearly accepting Jeremy's question as rhetorical at this point in the game. She's tightly strung, pissed at both of them for arguing at her—truthfully—that they need her here and safe and on the line in case of emergency.

 

Dolls sounds a lot calmer than Doc knows he actually is. "There is a plan, Waverly. We're the decoy. You need to get to the Iron Witch and have her work with Jeremy on anything that can neutralize magic, since the site is obviously teeming with it. Once the wards are down, I have faith that Wynonna and the two of us can take care of the rest."

Nicole narrows her eyes at that. Doc is betting that when the time comes, there's going to be backup. He doesn't say anything. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that they'll need it.

Jeremy says, "The—didn't she—"

"She knows what happens if Wynonna dies," Waverly interrupts. "She'll help."

Doc sticks some of Dolls serum in his holster for good measure, kisses Waverly's forehead and says, "Work fast, darlin'."

Waverly sighs. Dolls squeezes her shoulder as he follows Doc out of the station.

*

Wynonna wakes up naked, cold as fuck, and suspended from the ceiling by chains. Her shoulders already ache and there are hints of oxygen deprivation, so she's probably been in the position for at least a few minutes. She pushes herself up on her toes, mutters, "Really need to work more on calf raises," does her best to take a deep breath and calls out, "This the only way you can meet women?"

Fighting Irish doesn't show, so she figures she's alone for the moment. She doesn't like it. For all she used to wish that the world would just leave her to herself, now it feels…wrong. There's probably a better, more complex word, but it really boils down to that.

She tries to concentrate on other things: what she'll get Waverly for her next birthday; what would happen if she got Doc a dog; the color of Dolls' eyes when he was feral and yet somehow still knew her. The longer she's left, though, the longer she begins going to the balls of her feet, unable to stay on her toes, pushing up again only on the verge of passing out. Nausea overtakes her at a certain point, and she heaves. Thankfully, she hasn't eaten since she's been here, long enough that there's nothing to bring up.

She's on her toes, biting straight through the meat of her bicep to distract herself from the pain in her calves when the demon returns. More than anything she wants to make a smart comment, prove he hasn't gotten to her, but when he sweeps her legs out from under her, the whole of her bodyweight suddenly shifting to her arms, pulling them both right out of the socket, all she can do is scream.

*

Tripping the wards is intentional, that is part of the plan. Dolls and Doc had discussed their options _ad nauseum_ on the way to the bunker near the abandoned mines and agreed that outside of finding a second magic user on last minute's notice, their only real option is to get in, and the only good way to get in is to be let in. Dolls isn't going to say anything, but he’s assuming the wards will be mostly passive, meant to trap them.

He definitely isn't expecting them to strip straight through the binding chemicals in his blood stream, rip the beast loose with an intensity he's never felt before, not even in the beginning, during the experiments. He tries to tell Doc to run, _run_ , but he's too busy trying to make sure he aims all that energy, all the anger that resides inside the creature, anywhere but at Doc. Anywhere else.

It's probably why he doesn't notice something approaching them until there's an—an arrow?—the size of a small harpoon speared straight through his right side. He roars and rushes the attacker, his thoughts in color, and emotion and instinct as they always are when he's like this.

Too late, his creature-brain notices the black-blue crowding his vision. He's thrown to his hands and knees, the arrow being pushed further through when he hits the ground. He pulls in a breath to rain fire and retribution over whomever has dared to hurt him, dared to—

Dared to… The black-blue expands, and nothing holds.

*

The demon tosses Wynonna back in the cell at some point. He hasn't reset her shoulders, so she can't catch herself, and she lands on her hip and shoulder. She would think the pain of the wounds from the demon's claws, the places where he dripped acid on the skin of her stomach, would distract from that newer pain, but no such luck.

And now that she's not actively fighting fear, she notices the cell is really cool. Night-in-the-desert type cool, assuming they're still somewhere near Purgatory. The cement of the floor is downright cold along her naked skin, but it feels good against the acid burns and, to some extent, the inflamed, angry muscles and tendons in her shoulders, so she just stays there. The amount of effort it will take just isn't worth it. It probably won't get cold enough to harm her, and it's not as if sitting up is going to help much. 

She's floating on a sea of pain which flares with every shiver when she hears footsteps. It's hard to think, to try and formulate some type of plan. She's still pulling together the fragmented corners of her mind when the cell door is opened and two bodies are dropped inside with her.

The door is shut again, the footsteps receding before she can even properly position herself to see who's in the cell with her. She can't feel either of her hands and the shaking is draining energy she doesn't have to give. With some serious work she manages to turn herself onto her side and scrunch around to see. "Oh, fuck."

It comes out rough, the remnants of her screams and the lack of water creating a dry scratch that reminds her of forks on plates. Dolls has something _in_ his side. Doc's head is bleeding. She tries to swallow as best she can, get some moisture worked into her mouth and say, "No time for naps, boys."

Her voice isn't much better than it was moments before. She is not going to cry. Fuck that, and fuck Clootie and fuck…everything. Doc will wake up, he _will_ and they'll get her arms set and figure out a plan. She just has to wait.

*

Doc feels the headache before he's even fully awake. He slows his breathing and inches his eyes open. Thankfully, he's greeted by darkness, because he's pretty sure light would kill him just now. He eases himself into a sitting position and waits for the worst of the dizziness to pass so he can assess the situation.

Dolls still has a damn lighting pole stuck through him and appears to remain unconscious. Wynonna is crumpled naked on the floor, not particularly near either of them, which strikes him as odd until he sees the sickening curve of her shoulders, the slashes and marks along her skin. The level of rage it causes is hard to fight through, but he does, because he needs to help her.

He moves slowly, aware he's most likely concussed. Once by her, he carefully pulls her into a sitting position. She half-wakes in the middle, saying, "No, _no_ ," and fighting as best she can without either arm where it should be. 

Doc murmurs, "Shh, shh, I got you, I got you."

She breathes heavily. "Doc." It's not a question. She knows who he is and that he's there.

"Yeah, we're here."

"You stupid assholes," she says. There's no heat to it. There's more fear than he wants there to be.

"Mm," he agrees. "Come on, sugar, we gotta fix those arms."

She nods against his chest. He rubs a hand along the length of her back, cautious of the lower back, where a number of the burns and sores are located. 

Dolls wakes to her screaming as Doc gets the right arm in place, and for a moment Doc's worried they're going to have a problem. Dolls eyes are the hyper-yellow of his body's co-resident. He manages to speak, though, a quick, "Wynonna!"

"Relax, My Little Dragon, he's just fixing the hardware." Her breathing is still pained, so it's not as convincing as it might otherwise be, but it seems to be enough for Dolls, who folds in on himself.

Doc sets the second arm, rocking her for a bit until the worst of the shaking has passed. "All right. It's all right now."

"New Year's Resolution, we're gonna stop lying to each other."

Doc strokes her hair. "Certainly, but it's only September, so I got some months to get the worst of my impulses under control."

He and Dolls are still in their boxers and undershirts. He takes his shirt off and puts it on Wynonna, who's shivering, now that the pain has receded a bit. She says, "Dolls. We need to—"

He looks over at Dolls who shakes his head. Doc nods. "We need to keep warm," he finishes for her instead, and moves them so that they're on either side of Dolls, who is giving off heat more intensely than a bonfire.

Wynonna curls into Dolls and says, "Whatever this plan was, it sucked."

Neither of them mentions the other parts of the plan, no use in talking about something that might or might not work. Dolls says, "If—if I try to hurt one of you—"

"You won't," Doc tells him. He won't., Doc has watched him through at least three of these episodes and he knows, the way he knows how to shoot, that Dolls is safe to them. 

"Doc—"

"Trust me," Doc presses, not even really meaning to, but needing it all the same.

After a moment Dolls nods, and some of the tension melts from his frame. "I do. I—yeah. I do."

*

The demon hits them with some kind of percussive blast, stunning them all long enough for it to get in the cell, hoist Wynonna over its shoulder, and leave the cell again. Doc is swearing up a storm the second they've recovered, pacing the perimeter of the cell.

"Doc," Dolls says, actively considering getting himself onto his feet, despite his wound. 

Doc runs a hand through his hair and Dolls can see that it's shaking. "Not a fan of small spaces."

They've been in here for a few hours, at least, but Dolls realizes that Doc has been making certain he and Wynonna were safe, been focusing all of his mental energy on the two of them. Now, with Wynonna out there, and them in here it's—his focus can't be entirely diverted.

Doc's breathing is getting quicker. Dolls says, "Doc, listen to me, I'm in here with you, you are not alone. People know we're here, and they are coming for us. This is momentary, that's all. That's all, I promise. Just, breathe to my count."

He sets up an inhale on three, exhale on five count, and he can tell Doc is trying. It might have even worked if just as Doc's breath was effectively slowing, a _wail_ hadn't come from Wynonna. It takes everything Dolls has not to be throwing himself against the bars, and he's not sure he can even stand.

Doc _loses it_. He screams profanities, rushes the bars, shaking them, pushing into them and Dolls does stand then, using the wall to get him there. He stands and manages to get himself between Doc and the bars because if he can't help Wynonna—and the helplessness of that burns, but he can't—he's not going to let Doc come to harm on his watch. He's not.

Doc stills the moment Dolls gets inside his vision. He's still trembling, eyes wide, breathing agitated. "You shouldn't be standing."

"You shouldn't be using yourself as a battering ram, so I guess it's not anybody's finest moment."

"Dolls—"

Dolls shakes his head and maneuvers himself so that he can pull Doc flush to his unwounded side, tilt his head up a bit and kiss Doc. It's not a pushy kiss, but it's a statement. "I have to listen to them hurting her, Doc. I won't watch you hurt yourself. There's only so much I can take."

Doc is blinking at him, as though this is a revelation. Dolls knows they haven't spoken about it, but he kind of thought it was, well, _unspoken_. "Doc?"

It's Doc's turn to shake his head. "Not here, not in this place."

"But not just no."

"In a bed," he says softly. "With her. The three of us."

Another shout echoes and Doc trembles, but he presses his forehead to Dolls'. Dolls says, "I'm—I can't stand much longer."

Doc guides him down to the floor, and they hold on. If either squeezes tightly enough that it hurts at times, it's easier to focus in on that pain than Wynonna's cut off, echoing screams.

*

Wynonna wakes up to the sensation of being on fire inside of an ice chest. It doesn't make sense, nothing makes sense, she's dizzy and panicked, not breathing well. It hurts, breathing _hurts_ , which only makes her panic more and then Doc is saying, "Shh, shh, little darlin', shh, we've got you."

Doc doesn't sound great, his voice rough, as though he's been screaming, but he's there, one hand combing gently through her hair, the other pressed to her hip. She's leaning against Dolls, which explains the heat when the rest of her is cold. "Dolls?"

"'M here," he says, his voice is shaky, but he answers.

Wynonna remembers what she wanted to say to them before. She takes a breath—a mistake, at least two of her ribs are clearly broken—and bites back the sound of pain that wants to follow it. Everything hurts, really, but the sharp, stabbing of breathing is something else, something layered atop the throbbing of cuts and bruises and burns. "I'm sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry for," Doc tells her.

She shakes her head. "I wasn't paying attention. That was how he got me. I was just…I wasn't there. Present. Whatever."

"You're allowed to be human," the sort-of-kind-of dragon beneath her says. "We like you that way."

"This is—we're here because of me, because I—"

"We're here, love," Doc says, his tone suggesting he's talking down a feral cat, "because of fugly in the other room, and probably Clootie. Ain't nothing to do with you."

"That's—" _an oversimplification_ , she thinks. 

Dolls says, "Shh," and this time she listens, too tired to fight.

*

Wynonna is about to break when they're rescued. Not because of anything the demon has done to her, no. But because he's got Doc's throat in one hand and has levered Dolls up on his toes by way of the over-sized arrow shaft in him. Wynonna knows he won't stop, knows these two lives mean nothing to him.

Alice is her child, her daughter, the next heir. Alice is everything.

These men—these men are more. To her. She knows she should be ashamed to feel that way. She knows that's not how things are supposed to be.

She also knows that for the first time in months, she has the power to save something that really matters. And though it might destroy what's left of her, she will use that power the same way she uses the damn gun. With intent.

She opens her mouth and—

And the Iron Witch tears the bars of the cell apart like they're butter, then refocuses her magic, which smells of heat and smelting and danger, on the demon. Waverly, looking a little unsteady at her first glance at Wynonna, finds her voice to say, "Whoa, that's—that is not subtle."

"You didn't mention this had to be done in a particular style," the Witch snaps back.

Waverly blinks, seemingly coming back to them, and puts her hands up. "Nope. I was just expecting—" She frowns and her lower lip wobbles, but she manages to keep her voice relatively flat when she admits, "Actually, I'm not sure what I was expecting."

"Waves," Wynonna moans because no, no, _no_ , Waverly is not supposed to be here.

"Cavalry," Doc croaks, the demon having dropped him while being incinerated by the Witch, and oh, those fuckers _planned_ this. Wynonna is going to kill everyone as soon as she's healthy enough to stand and they've all been patched up. Her revenge will be terrible and mighty, such as Purgatory has never seen.

She blinks at her own inner monologue. "'m thirsty."

"Yup," Waverly says, hoisting up Dolls between herself and the Witch. 

Doc says, "Take a deep breath."

It takes Wynonna a moment to realize he's speaking to her. She does as she's told. She still screams when he picks her up, biting into the skin of her arm. Doc says, "Miz Haught had better have our getaway vehicle runnin' and ready."

Waverly says, "Jeremy, actually. Nicole's gonna come scrape up what Iron Maiden here left of Leprechaun the Third and meet us back at the station."

"Knew he looked like that green asshole," Wynonna mutters.

Dolls says, "Hospital for Wynonna."

Wynonna wants to argue that he needs one too, but she knows he can't. Jeremy and Doc will have to do their best. Doc starts up the stairs, which can't help but jolt her and she loses all semblance of thought to pain.

*

Doc goes with Dolls because someone's got to keep him under control if anything happens while they're trying to get the weapon free of the wound, cleaned up, and in shape for his body to heal itself. They give Dolls a shot of the compound that keeps him human and about three doses of morphine before using a hot cut blade to slice both ends of the arrow and then pull the shaft out before dousing the wound with sterilizing alcohol. Even through the morphine, Dolls bites into his arm at that.

The enhancements will fix what's left, Doc knows, but he sews the exit and entry shut, for the sake of feeling like he's done something other than sit around with his thumb up his butt. Then he says, "Jeremy, go make sure Waverly's eaten something."

When the door has shut behind Jeremy, Doc leans down and kisses Dolls, light and more like a touchpoint than a declaration or a start of anything. Dolls kisses back, but then says, "Go. Get to her. I'll sleep it off and be there."

Doc knows better. Dolls' healing is certainly quicker than the average person's, but the healing takes it out of him. For the next few days he's going to need to sleep a solid twenty hours a day and eat everything in sight. Doc says, "You get off this table, other than to find a bed, and I _will_ shoot you. I'm gonna go check in on her, then I’ll be back with food. Stay here, you fool."

"Love you, too," Dolls sasses, halfway asleep already. For the moment, Doc's going to take that as agreement.

*

Wynonna wakes to beeping and the sense of being pinned down. Panic kicks in and she tries to get herself standing, which would have resulted in her rolling right off the bed, because her muscles don't seem to be responding to commands, but Waverly and Doc both steady her, their hands on her shoulders, Doc saying, "All right there, Wynonna, you're safe."

It's more the cadence of his speech, the fact that he's present that calms her down, than the actual words. After a beat—probably several—she realizes she's got to be on the motherlode of good drugs, because she can't feel her fucking fingers. She blinks at Doc. "I can't feel my fucking fingers."

It doesn't come out as clearly as she had intended. Doc puts a straw to her lips and she takes some of the water. It's glorious, she wants all of it. Doc takes the straw away. She tries following with her head but that gets tiring after roughly two inches. She pouts.

"I know, but trust me, it's for the best."

"You'd just boot it if he gave you more," Waverly says.

Wynonna frowns. "Don' gang up on me."

"You go on back to sleep, you won't notice us doing it," Doc says, running a hand through her hair. It feels _soooo_ good. She might say that aloud. He laughs at something, maybe that. She's tired, though, and going back to sleep sounds really smart, actually, so maybe she'll just—

Yeah.

*

Dolls wakes up in the middle of the night if the lighting all around the Sheriff's office is any indication. He pushes himself up carefully and looks down at where the wound is bandaged. There's no leaking, and it feels considerably better. He gets down from the table where they'd done their makeshift doctoring and walks out to the main area, where Nicole is sitting, evidently doing paperwork.

"Haught, what are you—" That's a stupid question, he knows what she's doing here, so he reroutes. "I'm fine. I appreciate the concern but go home. See if you can maybe get Waverly to sleep for an hour or two."

Nicole rolls her eyes. "Oh yeah, okay, sure."

It's the most ironic he's ever heard her be. He laughs a little. The wound is tender, but he'll survive. "All right, well, I'll see if I can send her your way. Your _home_ way."

She sketches a salute. "Aye aye."

He smirks. "Night, Haught. Thanks for—for being a damn good officer of the law."

She's still staring at him like he's grown a second head when he walks out the door, which, yeah, probably fair.

*

Dolls steps inside Wynonna's hospital room with three bags of Wendy's, which is the only place open this late in Purgatory, and Doc rolls his eyes. "Ten hours of rest was too much to ask, I suppose?"

Dolls doesn't answer, just rouses Waverly from where she's fallen asleep with her head on Wynonna's bed. "C'mon, Waves. Officer Haught's expecting you."

"I doubt that," Waverly yawns out, gesturing at Wynonna.

"Well, I might have promised I would kick your ass all the way there personally if you weren't going to go yourself."

Waverly rubs a hand over her eyes and looks over at Wynonna again, but Wynonna's not moving. Dolls doesn't doubt she's being pumped to the gills with sedatives and pain medications. Waverly sighs. "Yeah, okay. I'll be back in the morning, though."

Dolls smiles. "Bring coffee. And bagels. And maybe some Danish."

"I'm not cruel," Waverly tells him, and then goes, leaving the three of them alone.

Doc stands once she's gone, and Dolls crosses to him, crowding into his space. He still smells of the cell, of damp and fear, but he also smells like Doc, gun oil and leather and cedarwood. Dolls says, "I wasn't going to get back to sleep."

Doc ushers him into a chair and digs his knuckles into the ridge of Dolls' shoulders, which hurts enough for Dolls to have to bite his lip to prevent a moan from escaping but is also the best thing he's ever felt. He grabs a burger from the first bag and goes to the task of pumping proteins as directly into his veins as possible. 

Doc says, "Good lord," and slowly presses deeper into one of Dolls' knots.

In between bites and wincing, Dolls manages to ask, "Have you slept at all?"

"Tried," Doc says quietly. 

Dolls thinks about pushing the point, but Doc's answer seems sincere, and there's an exhaustion in Doc's voice Dolls doubts is by choice. Instead he offers, "Maybe when it's the three of us in that bed?"

Doc laughs. "I'd say I could think of better things to do then, but I think you might just have the right of it."

Dolls tips his head back. "We'll still be in that bed with you when you wake up."

*

They've dialed back the pain meds when Wynonna wakes up next. She glances over at where Doc is staring out the window and asks, "What's the chance of you sneaking a bottle of whiskey in here for me?"

He gives her water instead, and says, "I'm gonna go find a nurse, see if we can't figure out when we can get you outta here."

"My knight in shining armor," Wynonna deadpans. It doesn't come out as droll as she would prefer.

Dolls has evidently woken to their banter, because he says, "Hey," as Doc is leaving.

Wynonna doesn't respond, too busy checking out the area of his torso where a metal pole recently resided. Dolls says, "Jeremy and Doc took care of it. Another few hours of sleep, few cows worth of meat, probably won't even scar that badly."

She's got no energy to roll her eyes, but she can ask, "What the hell were the two of you thinking?"

"That being with you was better than not being with you. And that it gave us an inside advantage as soon as Waverly was able to gate-crash."

"How'd that work out for you?" She raises an eyebrow.

Dolls gives her his most unimpressed look, which, if she's being fair, is pretty darn unimpressed. He says, "Seems to have shaken out."

"Dolls—"

He shakes his head. "You ever going to not come for one of us?"

She could lie, but they'd both know she was lying. He tilts his head. "Then shut it."

She reaches out a hand. He takes it. "Sorry we didn't come up with a better plan."

"Oh for— _you_ shut it. I was the one who got her ass demon-napped."

"Wynonna," he says. "You can't—not everything is on you."

"I've been a lost cause for months and we all know it."

"Nobody knows that because it's not true. You've had a rough couple of months. Part of the job description. You're allowed."

"It got you _harpooned._ "

"And I'm fine. I'm fine, Doc is fine, you're going to be fine."

She gives him a Look. "So, all's well that ends well?"

"In this instance? Yes."

"You're so full of it."

"Keep sweet-talking me like that, and I'll find you enough paperwork for a month."

"You're a real heart-breaker," she tells him.

He grins. "I'm doing all right for myself."

*

Doc gets permission to take Wynonna home the next morning. She's still pretty banged up, but nothing that requires further observation, and nobody at the hospital wants to deal with a bored and sedentary Wynonna.

"Oh good, time to cosplay Professor X," Wynonna says when Doc brings the wheelchair into the room. Truthfully, though, she knows damn well she wouldn't make it out the door of the room, let alone down the hall and into a car.

Dolls says, "Every time I think to myself 'nah, Wynonna would have been too goth in the nineties for Saturday morning cartoons,' you go and prove me wrong."

"Saturday morning cartoons _are_ goth. With a side of metal. What, nobody mentioned?"

Dolls laughs, and walks beside the chair, taking out his phone to text Waverly that they're on their way to the homestead. Waverly texts back, "Hunting and gathering bagels and cream cheese as we type."

Doc carries Wynonna into the house and she hasn't even been put in a chair before she's making grabby hands at the bagels and crooning, "Come to me, sweet, sweet carbs."

Dolls has to admit, he feels like he could plow his way through a dozen on his own.

Waverly talks, catching them up on a couple of things that have come through the office, thankfully nothing urgent. She says, "Jeremy's only set things on fire once in the past week, which is some kind of a record."

Dolls just keeps chewing. "Damage?"

Waverly shakes her head. "Nicole got to it pretty quickly." She grins. "Hotter on the case than the fire department."

"Stop talking," Wynonna warns. "I'm eating."

Waverly rolls her eyes with the put upon-ness that only younger siblings in their twenties can manage. She stands. "Anyway, I'm gonna get back there, keep digging into whatever it was that Clootie sent after you guys, since that might help us get to him."

She kisses the crown of Wynonna's head and leaves through the front. Wynonna chews a bite slowly before swallowing. "So. Just us and my bed, huh?"

"Nap time?" Dolls asks.

"Hundred percent," Wynonna agrees. Doc looks as if he could weep from relief.

*

Doc wakes not so much to the sound of Wynonna crying as the feel of it. He doesn't say anything, just pulls her toward him. She says, "Sorry, sorry, didn't mean to wake you."

He rubs at the back of her neck. "I'm thinking this is perhaps not the first time you've done this on your own."

"Hormones," she says, and it would be dismissive if she weren't strung as tight as fiddles strings, her words hitting up against both hands covering her face.

"Grief," Dolls counters, turning over to bracket her, his hand slipping beneath the hem of Doc's t-shirt to rest against the skin of his back.

"I didn't even want a kid," she argues. "I've _never_ wanted a kid. I have actively not wanted children for as long as I've known there was no fucking stork. Longer, since I was terrified of storks as a kid."

Doc is trying his best not to laugh at that assertion, so it's something of a relief when Dolls laughs softly. 

"Storks are freakish," Wynonna says in her defense, and Doc is pleased to note that a little of the tension has left her body.

"Mm," Dolls responds.

"I—I wasn't paying attention. I haven't been. I've been—"

"We haven't been either," Doc cuts her off. "Not in the way we should have."

"I'm not your _job_ ," she argues.

"No," Dolls says, all calm and considered. "You're ours. No modifier necessary."

"I'm nobody's," Wynonna states, and it's clearly meant to come out defiant, but mostly it comes out hollow and scared.

"I know you don't think I can out-stubborn you," Dolls tells her, "but that's only because you’ve never really given me reason to. You are now, though."

"Doc, would you explain—"

"I've stood next to Earps for centuries, Wynonna. I might not have the explanation you come seeking."

"I hate both of you." The assertion has none of the actual snap it would have if she were standing, feeling more herself, filled with the bravado she wears like a cape.

"Feeling's entirely mutual," Doc says, kissing at the tip of her ear.

"Entirely," Dolls echoes, pulling them all just a scant bit closer.

*

Wynonna next wakes from another nightmare she can't remember to the smell of bacon, and possibly pancakes. She's alone in the bed but has been hemmed in by pillows. The gesture is too sweet to consider, so she doesn't.

Instead she pushes herself up and takes a moment to let the screaming of her healing wounds die down to aggrieved murmuring. She wants a drink.

When she gets to the kitchen and sits down gingerly in one of the chairs at the table, Doc places a steaming cup of coffee and a bottle of Jim Beam in front of her and she says, "Yeah, okay, I love you."

She pours about a finger into her coffee and takes several sips, letting the heat and the alcohol burn through her. Dolls, who's at the stove, plates several slices of bacon, two eggs sunny-side up, and a stack of silver dollar pancakes. He sets it down where she's sitting, then does the same for himself and Doc.

The three of them eat in silence for a bit. When her mouth is entirely full, so much so it will be hard for her to understand herself, Wynonna asks, "Could you stay, for a bit? Just. Just 'til—"

"'Til you kick us out," Dolls says, his enunciation perfect, nothing in his bearing suggesting she has asked for anything extraordinary.

"Maybe a few days after that," Doc says with a smirk.

Wynonna takes another sip of her coffee, feeling her heart beat steady and true in her chest for the first time in a while. It still hurts to breath, both physically and psychologically. It still _hurts_. But it's better. She says, "I kick hard."

Neither of them argues with that.


End file.
